10 April 2014

Pesky reptoids in film and TV

In
1956 cinemagoers were scared witless at the drive-in by a stealthy little
sci-fi flick called Invasion of the Body Snatchers in which aliens replace
humans with ‘pod people’ – duplicates superficially identical to the original
victim, but which are utterly devoid of individuality or emotion. The movie would
be memorably remade in 1978 by Philip Kaufman with Donald Sutherland in the
lead role, before being lamentably ‘re-booted’ by Oliver Hirschbiegel in 2007
as the Nicole Kidman vehicle The Invasion. Body-snatching aliens have appeared
in many other film and TV narratives, including, most notably, Life Force (1985);
The Hunted (1988); The Faculty (1998); Dark Skies (1996-97);
Invasion (2005); and, more recently, The Host (2013), based on
the Stephanie Meyer book in which alien entities called “Souls” silently
conquer Earth by occupying the bodies of its inhabitants.

The
central conceit of all these ‘body snatcher’ stories – that the human will (and
even the soul) can be invisibly hijacked by a malevolent alien power – is one
that has become increasingly popular in recent years within the most paranoid
factions of the UFO/conspiracy community. British
TV-sports-presenter-turned-conspiracy-icon David Icke has been chiefly
responsible for the popularization of the idea that many of our world leaders
secretly are lizard-people from outer space. Icke’s massively popular books and
lectures posit that the world as we know it is a hologram designed and maintained by
a race of inter-dimensional reptilian beings – known to ancient Mesopotamian
cultures as the ‘Annunaki’ – who feed not only on human flesh, but off the
suffering of the human soul. According to Icke, many prominent figures of the
global elite are descended from reptilian bloodlines and are working in secret
to enslave humanity. In his development of these theories throughout the 1990s,
Icke borrowed liberally from Ancient Astronaut proponent Zecharia Sitchin, who
first made the theoretical connection between the Annunaki and
extraterrestrials in his 1976 book The
12th Planet.

But
while Icke’s premise may be rooted in old-school Ancient Astronaut theory, the finer details of his
elaborate narrative seem at least partially indebted to Hollywood
entertainment. Some 16 years prior to Icke’s first book on the ‘reptoid’ agenda
in 1999 (The Biggest Secret), the
television mini-series V (1983–1984) was spinning its own compelling
yarn about flesh-eating reptilian aliens who disguise themselves as humans and
exert their influence on our society and politics. Indeed, it is almost
impossible to contemplate reptilian aliens today without immediately recalling iconic
imagery from the TV show that first thrust these pesky lizard folk into our popular culture. The
2009 V ‘reboot’ explored similar
themes to the original, but this time, ironically, seemed to owe more to Icke’s
by-now fully-developed reptilian lore, with the show’s alien ‘Visitors’ craving
not only human flesh, but the human soul itself. Talk about a feedback loop.

More
than a decade before Icke embarked on his lizard-bashing crusade, John
Carpenter’s They Live (1988) had already captured lightning in a bottle
for the conspiracy community as it tapped into and helped shape prevailing ideas about evil
extraterrestrials colluding with human elites – ideas already sown into our sub-cultural
fabric through the original V television series.

Based
on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story Eight O’clock in the Morning, They
Live depicted a blue collar drifter (played by Roddy Piper) who finds a
pair of sunglasses that allows him to see the stark reality of corporate
America, where shops are covered with subliminal signs that say “Submit,” “Stay
Asleep,” and “Do Not Question Authority.” The world is being secretly run in
this Orwellian fashion by malevolent, skeletal-faced aliens who are allied with
the US establishment – the human elite having been promised tickets off-world
when Doomsday arrives.

Carpenter
pulled no punches in describing his film’s politics. “I looked at the country
and thought we were in really deep trouble. This seems like fascism to me, the
rise of the fundamentalist right and the kind of mind control they’re putting
out, the kind of presidency Reagan has had. We haven’t got a chance.”

Unfortunately
for Carpenter, his film’s searing political vision may have played a key role in its undoing at the box-office. They Live was
pulled just two weeks after its November 4, 1988 release date. While Carpenter
blamed audiences who “don't want to be enlightened,” co-star Keith David had a
more conspiratorial take on the film’s failure: “not that anybody’s being
paranoid,” said the actor, “but it was interesting that They Live was
number one at the box office... and suddenly you couldn’t see it anywhere – it
was, like, snatched.” Proof, if proof was needed, that the reptoids’ dastardly
influence extends even into Hollywood.

Regardless
of their cultural provenance, the reptilians have
clawed their way deep into the modern conspiratorial psyche, and they show no sign
of leaving – a comforting thought, no doubt, for cigar-chomping Hollywood producers
and ex-sports presenters alike.

Showing us what she's made of: Morena Baccarin as the alien leader Anna in the 2009 reboot of V.

Thanks for the reminder, Nick! I did forget about that one, and it's a good one! From 1975 -- before the reptoids were a twinkle in David Icke's eye. I can think of a few other examples of evil lizard men on the big and small screen prior to 'V', but few that have so clearly influenced modern reptilian conspiracy lore.

I just watched that a couple weeks ago. It was actually humans who tunneled in and disturbed the reptoid's nest. Then it rampaged around a privately held underground data storage facility looking for its eggs.

I wouldn't normally be so pedantic, Nick, except your memory seems to adhere more to conspiracy tropes than the actual plot. I don't want anyone thinking the episode might have influenced later conspiracy myths -- especially since Kolchak was cancelled after the airing of that episode. (They were too close to the truth! Etc.)

As a child of the 80's, V had a huge impact in my impressionable psyche. That scene when Diana opened her mouth to gobble that poor rodent will forever be seared in my head --and may ALSO account for my shyness with brunettes :P

What I liked about V as a concept, is that it reminds me a lot of the Conquest of Mexico, in that the invaders are following a main directive, yet they are *also* driven by their own personal ambitions & engage in constant power struggle with each other. Diana is like a female version of Pedro de Alvarado, the violent Spanish captain who had an insatiable lust for gold, and almost caused the utter failure of Cortés's enterprise.

As for They Live, what else can be said? The movie is a masterpiece, and I do believe it had a greater impact in our current zeitgeist than most of us give it credit for.

"UFO Movie"

Robbie Graham's Working Definition:

Any movie that taps directly into any aspect of UFO mythology or notably draws inspiration from UFOlogical literature, incorporating into its plot references to frequently debated UFOlogical phenomena, events and locales, as well as specialised UFOlogical terminology.

A UFO movie need not be about UFOs, per se, nor feature traditional UFOlogical iconography, but will nevertheless often devote a respectable amount of its running time to the dramatisation of imagined human/alien interactions, usually - though not always - in the context of a 'first contact' scenario in which the extraterrestrials assume the role of visitor/invader. In other words, the UFO movie frequently is concerned with the problems inherent from a human perspective in earthly encounters with extraterrestrials.